Genres

Blog Stats

52,326 hits

H. G. Wells – “The Island of Doctor Moreau” (1896)

The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction novel, by English author, H. G. Wells.

The novel deals with a number of philosophical themes, including pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, and human interference with nature. Wells described the novel as “an exercise in youthful blasphemy”.

The Island of Doctor Moreau is a classic of early science fiction and remains one of Wells’s best-known books, and has been adapted to film and other media on many occasions. (Wikipedia)

After a day of alternate sleep and feeding I was so far recovered as to be able to get from my bunk to the scuttle, and see the green seas trying to keep pace with us. I judged the schooner was running before the wind. Montgomery—that was the name of the flaxen-haired man—came in again as I stood there, and I asked him for some clothes. He lent me some duck things of his own, for those I had worn in the boat had been thrown overboard. They were rather loose for me, for he was large and long in his limbs. He told me casually that the captain was three-parts drunk in his own cabin. As I assumed the clothes, I began asking him some questions about the destination of the ship. He said the ship was bound to Hawaii, but that it had to land him first.

“Where?” said I.

“It’s an island, where I live. So far as I know, it hasn’t got a name.”

He stared at me with his nether lip dropping, and looked so wilfully stupid of a sudden that it came into my head that he desired to avoid my questions. I had the discretion to ask no more.